Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-01-01
AMADOR COUNTY.
Its Resources in Agriculture, HOrticult'
ure, Lumber and Mines

Its Resources in Agriculture, HOrticult-
ure. Lumber and Mines
Amador county belongs exclusively to
the foothill section, and lies southeast of
Sacramento and north OF Calaveras. Ithas
an area of 737 square miles, or 100000
acres. Amador, like FL Dorado and Placer,
was one of the principal mining counties,
and to-day ranks next to Nevada county in
the output of her quartz mines. Since the
placer mines were worked out the people
of that county have turned their attention
to agriculture and horticulture. This
county possesses a variety of resources, any
one of which, properly developed, is suffi-
cient to make her people wealthy. The
altitude varies from 300 to 5000 feet which
affords all an opportunity to select the alti-
tudes best suited to them. The county
is Jackson,
ONE OF THE OLDEST TOWNS
In the foothills, and has a population at
this time of 1900 Like Placerville, Co.
iona and Auburn Jackson has a much
smaller population now than it had during
the flush mining times of the early tifdes
The population is of settled and perma-
nent character. The other towns of any
size and importance are Volcano, Suffer
Creek, Amador City, Plymouth, lone City
and DrytoWn. The Amador Branch Rail
road connects lone City with the Southern
Pacific at Gait, in Sacramento county, thus
afording convenient and rapid means of
communication between Amador and the
rest of the State.
This county has an almost inexhaustible
timber supply, which needs only railroads
extending into her mountains to make the
numbering interest profitable and extern
siYe. The eastern portion of the county is
ONE SOLID FOREST
OF oak pine, cedar and fir The western
portion is splendidly adapted to farming
and fruit-growing, and great advancement
has been made in these industries during
the pas; few years. Wheat, barley oats,
rye and corn yield abundantly, and the fer
tile bottom lands adjoining the Costumes
and Mokelumne rivers produce large crops
of vegetables. Irrigation is not required
for grape raising in the foothills, which
accounts for the superior quality of the
grapes S.,.aa the VINE that comes from that
county.
The The amador Sentinel, of recent date,
says There is a popularity about the
soil of this county which is worth noting
as proving its valuable character tor gram
raising. w e nave Ii VIEW 4OUI AeluS ~
Gated one at Jackson, one near Suffer creek,
another at Rancheria and the fourth at
Drytown, that have been cropped with
grain every year for twenty-five years, and
have each season yielded a full crop. On
one of these fields no artificial fertilizer
whatever has been put, and the others
have had but slight attention in that re-
spect. These fields selected for notice are
several miles apart, which would tend to
show that
THIS VARIETY OF SOIL
Extends over large region, and is confined
to no particular locality, and it is therefore
reasonable to suppose that great portion
of the unimproved land of the county will
yield the same when brought under cult
walton. To our knowledge there has never
been an analysis of the soil to account fol
its unusual prolifcness, but an intelligent
farmer gives us the following theory, which
may reasonably account for it: That the
underlying rock is of limestone charac
ter, which as it crumbles each year /;
brought to the surface by the disturbing
element of the pillow and becoming heated
by the action of the sun is subsequently
Stacked by the rains, thus returning to the
soil the lime taken from it by the growing
grain. In other words, the soil OF grea
portion of this county is selffertilizing.